Digital Witness
by AngeK98
Summary: Connor wakes up 800 years in the future where space-travel is common, moon-people exist, androids roam the streets and androids are slaves again. And he has a new mission. Find Iko.
1. Chapter 1

**So I kind of got obsessed with DBH over the past few days... then I started thinking about the Lunar Chronicles because I love it... and then I couldn't stop thinking about DBH and TLC. So then I combined it. So here it is. I realise it's kind of niche but if you want to familiarise yourself with DBH or The Lunar Chronicles before you start reading then go ahead! There are playthroughs of DBH on YouTube and Lunar Chronicles is avaliable to read as an e-book or a physical copy. Or you can just go read the Wiki. Anyway if anyone is familiar with any of these stories and somehow also thought damn I'd love to read a DBH/TLC crossover... well, here it is! This is my new project!**  
**P.S Might try and give this a Sleeping Beauty kind of arc because... Lunar Chronicles... fairy tales... gotta keep the same concept you know.**

Connor's internal processor whirred. His thirium pump beat.

_RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS_

_RK8000_

_T.E 130_

_AUDIO-VISUAL SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING_

"Did it work?"

"His fingers are twitching."

_LIMB MOTORS FUNCTIONING_

Connor's eyes opened.

_ROYGBV ANALYSIS/FILTERS ON_

"Cress, he's awake."

A man stood in front of Connor, his face too close, his blue eyes wide.

_GENDER DETERMINING ABILITY FUNCTIONING_

Connor blinked the diagnostics report out of his vision.

The sound of a chair scraping against linoleum assaulted his auditory sensors. Not long after, a short girl with shoulder-length blonde hair appeared from around a corner. Connor could sense the presence of multiple computers behind the corner where the girl just appeared from.

He stood still. He was connected to a cylindrical metal port. Electricity was charging through his body. He swivelled his eyes and accessed the internal GPS within him.

_RIVERSIDE DRIVE WEST, WINDSOR, ON N9A 5K9, CANADA_

The girl worked quickly to get him out of the port. Her fingers stumbled. Connor read her features and analysed her heart rate. She was nervous.

She tugged him out of the port. He hand was cold against his electrically charged flesh. Connor looked at the two people before him. Without him realising, an identification number flashed across his vision.

_CARSWELL THORNE_

_D.O.B. MAY 22, 106 T.E, AMERICAN REPUBLIC_

_CLEARED OF CRIMINAL RECORD:_

_DISORDELY CONDUCT_

_THEFT_

_ID CHIP REMOVAL_

_PROBATION VIOLATION_

_KIDNAPPING_

_CONSPIRACY_

The list seemed to go on and on. Connor blinked it away. He'd never been able to see a person's criminal record in his vision before. He turned to the girl.

_CRESCENT MOON DARNEL_

_JULY 18 110 T.E, LUNA_

_SHELL_

_CLEARED OF CRIMINAL RECORD:_

_ESPIONAGE_

_KIDNAPPING_

Connor didn't know where Luna was. Immediately, an answer popped up in his retina screen.

_LUNA IS A COUNTRY FOUNDED ON THE MOON. PRIOR TO WORLD WAR IV, THE MOON WAS COLONISED BY EARTHEN RESEARCHERS. PEOPLE LIVING ON LUNA ARE DIFFERENT TO HUMANS DUE TO THE LUNAR GENE WHICH ENABLES THEIR PEOPLE TO MANIPULATE BIOELECTRICITY. EARTHEN-LUNAR TENSIONS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED DUE TO PRINCESS SELENE CHANNARY JANNALI BLACKBURN SPEARHEADING THE REVOLUTION AND ABDICATING THE THRONE AFTER ENDING THE REIGN OF QUEEN LEVANA TO TURN LUNA FROM A MONARCHY INTO A REPUBLIC._

Connor blinked the text away.

"Cress, why hasn't he said anything yet?" said Carswell Thorne.

"I think he's learning. It's been a while since he's been awake," said Crescent Moon Darnel. Connor amended that. Cress. A nickname.

During that time, Connor learnt what a shell was. Then he downloaded the current affairs into his brain.

His system glitched from the sheer amount of information downloaded and Connor almost fell to the ground, but Carswell Thorne caught him around the shoulders.

"Should we sit him down?" asked Carswell. Connor didn't hear an answer, but he was being led towards the room where Connor could sense the computers. Thorne eased him down on a leather office chair.

There were five screens in front of him, each displaying something different. One broadcasted a newscreen, another held binary which took Connor a second to translate as the numbers rolled down the screen. The screen on the left was a recording. As Connor turned his head left, then right, he realised it was a recording of his own vision, he could see what he was seeing. The fourth screen was a social forum. It wasn't of any importance to Connor. What did garner his interest was on the fifth middle screen.

It displayed a rotating image of his model. RK8000. Last time Connor knew, he was an RK800. And nearing the end of his life after his thirium pump could no longer be repaired. It happened to all androids, he knew. So why was he back?

"Connor?" said Cress. Her voice was small and quiet. Connor turned around to face her. She gazed into his eyes, her brow puckered. "Connor, are you alright?"

Was Connor all right? He had seen the news from the past couple of centuries. He was in a body that was his own and also wasn't. Space travel and moon people existed. Was he still deviant?

"Connor, can you speak?"

Connor tried his voice. "Yes."

His voice came out exactly as he expected it to. There was no humanoid roughness. He still sounded the same.

"Do you know who you are?"

"I'm Connor."

"Does he only know that because you keep calling him that?" whispered Carswell Thorne. Connor didn't know why he was whispering. He could hear him just fine.

"Well, that's his name. It says that on his personality chip." Cress indicated towards the portable screen in her hand.

"I knew my name was Connor before any of you said anything."

"Is he not going to ask us who we are?" said Carswell.

"I already know who you are. You are Carswell Thorne and you are Cress Darnel. Otherwise known as two of the members of the Lunar Seven who toppled down the regime of Queen Levana Blackburn."

"Well, there was eight of us actually. I don't know why no one counts Iko," said Cress with a sniff.

Connor ran a search on Iko. An image blinked in his retina screen. An android?

"Why am I here?" he asked, blinking the image away.

Cress and Carswell looked at each other.

"Well... we need you," said Cress. "I mean... androids need you."

Connor frowned. "What do you mean? What's wrong with androids?"

Cress wrung her wrists. She stood a meter away from him, gazing at him as if she couldn't believe he was there. "I first heard about you and the android civil rights movement when I was on my satellite years ago. I was trying to learn about Earthen history, you see... um... you wouldn't know how much things have changed since you were last... awake."

Judging from Connor's chronocounter, it had been... nearly eight centuries since he had been awake. That was a lot to miss out on. Connor wasn't sure he had the storage capacity to download all the news from the past seven-hundred and ninety-eight years. He suspected Cress was going to inform him anyway.

"The civil rights movement worked but then... it failed. After Markus died and after Nora Kamski was assassinated, the war against androids begun. Technological advancements were made and humans created cyborgs. The perfect blend of human and robot and when wired correctly, ruthless. Changes to android production were made. Androids now... only the escort droids look like humans. And they... well they only live to serve."

Connor stared into Cress's eyes. "Androids are slaves again?"

"As far as anyone knows, androids were _always_ slaves. I asked Thorne about it, because he grew up on Earth and he had no idea. On Luna, androids are a taboo subject, or at least, they were. No one would have learnt a lick about androids or cybernetics on Luna. I only found out because I've been stuck on a satellite for seven years with barely anything to do so… I'm probably one of the few people in this solar system who knew that androids could 'deviate'-" she put the word in air quotes "-and I know that's what happened to our friend Iko. Not even Cinder knew about deviancy and she's a mechanic."

"The _point _is," said Thorne, "During the wars, all records of the android civil rights movement have been wiped out. Android design has changed. Deviation can only happen if a personality chip has a glitch-"

"But," said Cress, "I've analysed personality chips. I've analysed yours and Iko's before and there was another android a while ago that I managed to get my hands on and… there's no glitch. I don't know how it happens but it's not a glitch. It's deviancy."

"Deviancy occurs when an android feels an emotion or a desire intense enough to break free of their original coding to act on it. A deviated android can also wake up another android by interfacing with them." said Connor matter of factly.

"Androids can't interface anymore. It was one of the first things to go when android design changed. So, androids can't turn other androids deviant anymore. They have to do it themselves and people put it down to a glitch so they go and get their android repaired but they just come back with a brand new personality chip rather than a repaired version of the old one," she stopped for breath. Her face had become quite red. Anger, Connor assessed. "So that means there could be innumerable perfectly functioning androids just discarded in the trash or something all because someone doesn't want androids to break free of their coding. And there's just been a war. Statistically speaking, there should be a lot more androids who might have felt scared or protective or – or any emotion really who must have deviated."

"Are there not?" asked Connor. His processor whirred.

"Well there are. Iko started a support group in the Eastern Commonwealth. But that's different there. Cyborgs and androids have more rights than most, lately. Or at least we thought it did." Her jaw tensed and Connor sensed there was something Cress wasn't telling him. "But in the American Republic or the European Federation or wherever Cinder doesn't live really… it's a different story."

Connor ran a scan for Cinder and found out she was the same person as Selene Blackburn. Empress Regent of the Eastern Commonwealth and… a cyborg. Connor read the extent of her cybernetic enhancements. Her left hand and leg had been replaced, a few ribs, her heart, too was not unaffected and she had a control panel at the base of her skull. Most notably, according to the article, were her cybernetic eyes, which were essential in bringing down the Lunar queen due to their ability to sense when someone was manipulating the bioelectricity around them by detecting it as a lie.

"So, that's why we've woken you up," said Cress. He blinked the text from his retina display. "We need you to help us."

"And how do you expect me to do that?"

"I've researched a lot about you. You deviated during the first android civil rights march. You helped Markus lead the androids to freedom… you're a detective and… you were the only android we could find with a somewhat intact body."

"Somewhat intact? Is this not the model of an RK8000. I am an RK800."

"Well yes. We had to replace parts. Your retina display, for example. We upgraded your software, too. I've changed your core processor so you can run faster and longer and your thirium pump has an added fan, too."

"Your screen says I'm an RK8000."

"Well that's just on the screen. I had to change that because well-"

"Because if anyone recognised your old model this whole plan would be done for. But mostly you're still an eight-hundred."

"Mostly?"

"We had to make sure you wouldn't be recognisable. I'm on probation still and well, we stole you from a museum," grinned Carswell.

Connor was silent for a moment. Processing. Then-

"You stole me from a _museum_?" spluttered Connor.

"You can't just say you _stole _him Thorne. He's a cop!"

Thorne waved a hand lackadaisically. "If it's for the greater good it's fine. Just like how president Vargas said."

Cress rolled her eyes. "I'm not really sure Vargas would see it that way right now."

"Well, Connor doesn't look like he's about to be arresting anyone. I don't think he really cares."

"I'm more interested in why, exactly, I was in a museum?"

"There's a robotics display. Technology through the ages kind of thing. You and Markus had a small section about the march in 2038."

"Markus-" said Connor, cutting Thorne off. "Is he here too?"

Cress twiddled her thumbs. "We ran a diagnostics test. We can't reboot him without a new body from Cyberlife itself. Markus was unique in your day, he's even more now."

"I won't be able to rally androids. I don't have the same leadership qualities as Markus."

"That's not what we need. We need you to _find _androids. I hear you were an excellent deviant hunter back in your day."

"I stopped doing that a long time ago."

"But you are still capable of it. We needed an android who was already deviant, whose already done this before. And because we need you to find someone in particular."

"Who?"

Cress faced her portscreen towards Connor. A picture of the android, Iko, was displayed there. "She's gone missing."


	2. Chapter 2

Connor took the portscreen from Cress and tapped it, enlarging the image of Iko. Connor could recognise beauty when he saw it. He was able to transpose the golden ratio of beauty onto any face he saw. It was useful as a detective, as there were a lot of crimes involving beautiful women.

It wasn't Connor's first time seeing someone, human or android, with a perfect ratio, but those moments were few and far between, especially for androids, who were designed to stray away from the ratio, as a way to blend in more seamlessly with humans. _Attractive, but not _too _attractive," _Kamski had once told him. Androids had wrinkles, deep tear troughs, assymetrical faces. Iko, however was different. Her dark skin was flawless, her lips full and stained a deep red. Her face was young too, like the human models that Connor had once seen on a billboard who did not look a day older than twenty-five. From the height profile, she was as tall as Connor was. He knew her body was designed to draw eyes towards her.

"She was an escort droid?" asked Connor. "To pleasure humans?"

"Well, that's just her body. She wants to be human, so when Thorne managed to find an android body that she could use to blend in, we swapped their personality chips around. So now Darla powers our cargo-ship and Iko can walk and talk and be human."

"Cargo-ship?"

"The Rampion," said Carswell in a tone of voice akin to a parent speaking about their overacheiving child. "Originally, Iko was a Serv 2.0 or something, and belonged to the Linh family, but Cinder's stepmother discarded Iko's personality chip because of her deviancy. She didn't want a defunct android. But when Cinder and I broke out of prison, Cinder had rescued her personality chip before it could have gone into the trash. So she transferred her to the first piece of tech that Cinder could find, which was the Rampion. She was just a disembodied voice coming from the speakers and I knew she was unhappy with that, so I won Iko a new body."

It was a lot for Connor to process. He ignored Carswell's comment on breaking out of prison and focused on the portscreen. Iko's profile displayed a picture of her Serv model, which did not look like an android at all. Her previous body was plain white, extremely short and ran on treads. She looked like a very short robot, with a singular blue sensor for an eye. Connor knew immediately that this non-human appearance was how humans regulated deviancy. Nobody would treat androids as human if they didn't _look _human, androids wouldn't believe themselves to be living and thinking if they didn't look like a living and thinking being. He thought about the replacement body.

"And the other android, Darla, is happy with these circumstances?"

"She is. I think she much rather prefers being a ship than being an escort droid," said Thorne.

Connor nodded. Already, the need to solve the case crept up on him. He'd stayed on with the DPD for years until Hank retired, then he joined Markus and Elijah at Cyberlife to create a better, safer world so androids and humans could co-exist. All for nothing, apparently.

Connor didn't know if it was his programming that made him want to take up this case, or if it was because he wanted to. Maybe it was because these humans were basically demanding him of it. He didn't take orders from humans, he reminded himself. He wanted to figure this out on his own volition.

Did he? His body had been rebooted only twenty-eight minutes ago. The first people he met only woke him up out of their own need. This was not unlike Cyberlife, not unlike Amanda programming him to solve cases of deviancy only. Carswell and Cress did not look unkind, but they had a criminal record and Connor knew that a person's appearance did not negate morality. However what he _did _know, were that Carswell and Cress were heroes, at least in the eyes of the media. But trust didn't come to Connor easily.

But the world had changed. He might not take orders from humans but there were androids who did not even know they were deviant. Was it not his moral right to help? Especially when Carswell and Cress went to such lengths to wake him up? But was it out of necessity, or something else?

Connor was not going to ask to be shut down, though. He had been repaired and upgraded. He did not grieve the loss of his friends, as he had done so for Hank some time ago. Markus already said his final words to him when Connor left for Cyberlife to deactivate his thirium pump. There was no feeling of bitterness towards being activated again in this new and unfamiliar world. He was only confused. Confused and wary. He had a case, though and there was a rather large part of Connor that was tempted to solve it.

"I will help you," he said finally. Cress and Carswell had been staring at him patiently as he was ruminating and looked relieved to hear him speak.

Cress grasped his hands in hers. "Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!"

"Yeah, imagine if he said no and we had to return him to the museum," quipped Carswell.

Cress' hands slipped from his and Connor noticed a twitch of her eyelid as she stopped herself from rolling her eyes at Carswell.

"Well, I suppose we'd better call Cinder and Kai. Let them know we've got a start on all this," she said. She leaned over Connor, towards the screen that displayed a social forum. In a second, the screen flashed and what Connor recognised as a video call was displayed.

In a few seconds, the screen changed and Connor was faced with a tall, Asian man with thick black hair and full lips. He was dressed entirely in regalia, in a white standing collared shirt with epaulets and golden embroidery on his chest.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" This was Kaito, Connor acknowledged, Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth. His greeting sounded entirely too casual and boyish considering he was the ruler of several countries. He looked at Connor. "Who's this? That's not-"

"It is," said Carswell.

Kai's eyes blinked from Carswell's to Connor's own. He stared at him, mouth agape. "I'd better get Cinder."

In a flurry of movement, Kai disappeared from the screen. Connor looked at the busy background, where he saw people roaming around, removing installations. There were white glimmering pillars and a pergola decorated with peonies. Connor knew this to be wedding decorations.

Within a few moments, Kai had returned with a shorter woman in tow. Her mousy brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Her cheeks were red.

"You found him?" was the first thing she said. She pushed Kai aside, making sure she was at the forefront of the screen. She looked at Connor. "You _found _him."

This was the abdicated Lunar queen? The regent Empress of the Eastern Commonwealth? From the images Connor had seen, she'd either been rallying up Lunars and Earthens alike, a fierce look in her eyes, or dolled up and beautiful, but looking uncomfortable in a dress for a press conference of a public outing. Here, she was not dolled up or beautiful, or trying to rouse a revolution. Here, Connor saw nothing but a girl who, even behind a screen, Connor could tell was stressed and scared and desperately needing his help.

"We found him," said Carswell.

"Hello," said Connor.

Cinder stared at him. "Please, find Iko. She's my best friend."

He was already in detective mode. "Where did you last see her?"

"Two weeks ago. She had disappeared when we were meant to go dress shopping for – for our wedding," she glanced at Kai, her fiancée. "I don't know where she went. I can't get in contact with her."

She raised her hand to brush her hair out of her face. She was wearing a long-sleeved grey shirt, so he hadn't noticed her metal limbs before. Her hand, however was exposed, a grey-silver metal with smooth fully articulated joints. She let her hand drop to her side when she noticed Connor looking.

"No one can find her?" Connor asked. He knew that they would have alerted the relevant authorities to to the disappearance of Cinder's best friend, especially if she was royalty.

"No. Usually, when an android goes missing, you'd be able to find them because their personality chip also tracks their location... but... I don't know what's happened. It's like she's been destroyed, but I know she hasn't. I _know."_

Connor had been in multiple situations where he had to find a missing android. More often than not, they had been taken by anti-android extremists. It was common. After the protests, after the United States allowed androids their rights, there were people who refused to see androids as living and thinking beings. It had been a case Connor had solved. He found the perpetrator, who stalked his targets and managed to publicise his cause by livestreaming his android experiments. It was a case that hardened Connor against humans, an unshakeable feeling that they would never see him as a being, that they would always see him as a thing. It was only the reverence of Hank that Connor could not despise and fear humans, something that he hadn't felt before turning deviant.

Connor had an inkling that this was not unlike that. At the very least, he had to find a body.

"I will find her," said Connor. The tenseness of Cinder's shoulders left her. She looked like she wanted to cry.

She turned towards Kai. "I have to go. I need to help. Please. I can't _stay _here while she's not."

"Fine," said Kai, clenching his jaw. "Go."

"Where are you?" asked Cinder.

"Canada," said Thorne.

"Canada?"

"We had to get out of Detroit," explained Thorne.

"Is that where you found him?"

"I was in a museum," said Connor helpfully. "They stole me and upgraded my body."

"Oh, that's good. So, I suppose we're going on the run again?"

"Nothing ever changes," Kai's sigh came out as a crackle through the speakers.

Cinder ignored him and turned towards the screen "Send me your location and I'll meet you."

Carswell shook his head. "We'll find you. Go in something the Rampion can track you in. We'll need to be on the move."

"Alright," said Cinder. "I'll see you soon, then."

Cress shut the video-call off, the screen returned to the social forum.

"Come on," said Cress. "We should get back."

Thorne nodded. "You alright to stand?"

Connor did so. He felt as if he had just been newly programmed. Which in a way, he had.

Outside, Connor discovered they were in a library. It was night-time and it should have been closed, but somehow Cress managed to penetrate their security system to allow themselves access. It must have been where Cress and Carswell were able to get access to a charging port, as well as to access the net without having their cargo-ship be traced. They were expert runaways.

They had to catch a train to the cargo-ship because it was so big that they had to land the ship somewhere inconspicuous. That inconspicuous place was a farm where a few goats and horses roamed.

Whatever Connor was expecting the Rampion to look like wasn't what he saw. When Carswell said cargo-ship, Connor imagined something resembling a water vehicle. Instead, the Rampion was bigger than any ship Connor could have ever imagined, sleek yet bulky. There was a slight discolouration on the base of the ship, like someone had painted over something there. It wasn't a ship meant for oceans... it was a ship meant for outer-space.

"Nobody owns this farm," said Carswell. "The only people here are a few squatters. Reminds me of landing on Scarlet's farm with Cinder."

Cress snorted. "Come on. Let us in already. We should meet Cinder halfway."

"Captain is King," said Carswell, walking towards the door, a second later, the hatch to the door opened with a thud against the green grass. A password. Connor saved that to his memory, just in case.

Carswell took the lead up the hatch and into the Rampion.

Connor was familiar with a lot of science fiction media. A few people at the DPD had been a fan of the genre. For Hank, it usually hit a bit too close to home for him to have anything other than a general interest in it. For Connor, he admired the genre. There were some that he had enough of, a few classics that seemed to focus more on the battle scenes than the humanity they were fighting for, and there were some that he loved for its discussion on the human mind and soul. Being familiar with the genre, however, didn't prepare him for the real thing, whereupon stepping inside a military-grade space-ship was something that not many people could prepare for.

Carswell and Cress didn't give him time for the grand tour, though. Carswell pointed out several rooms, like the kitchen, the bathroom, their bedrooms. They stopped at the control room, where Thorne sat at the captain's seat and Cress sat in the set besides that.

"Darla, prepare for take off,"

The ship felt alive and warm. Connor remembered there was an android who powered the ship and the disembodied android voice came over the speakers.

"Preparing for take-off, captain." Darla's voice was lilting and feminine, but came off a little metallic in the speakers. The ground beneath Connor's feet started to rumble. "Oh. Who is this?"

"My name is Connor," said Connor.

"This is what we needed to go to Detroit for. Connor is an android. A detective. He's going to help us find Iko," said Cress.

"You're very much welcome here, detective," said Darla. "I do hope you'll find our friend."

"Thank you," said Connor.

"What destination, captain?" said Darla.

"Track Cinder's ID chip, Darla. We'll be meeting her."

"Indeed, captain. Please remember to sit down, and strap yourselves in. This includes you, detective."

Connor heeded Darla's warning and found himself in the closest seat. The buckles around him tightened. The spaceship tilted backwards, and then rocketed towards the skies.


End file.
